Note: the following review contains some major spoilers. If you haven't seen the movie yet and want to know as little about it as possible, you may wanna turn away. Thank you.
I think we all know what to expect from every
Transformers film - thin scripts, loads of robot action/explosions, and....Megan Fox. The first film, released back in 2007, was released to mixed reviews but became a huge box office hit upon its release. The second film,
Revenge Of The Fallen, was released two years later - this time to even worse reviews, yet an even bigger box office hit - and led many people to use that film to categorize the franchise (mostly for negative reasons). While
ROTF certainly wasn't very good, it wasn't exactly horrible (I'll post my revisits of both films later this week) like everyone has said. So what can we expect from the third and reportedly final film,
Dark Of The Moon? Director Michael Bay has promised time and again that this will be the best film in the trilogy (Shia LaBeouf agrees), but does he keep those promises? I think so.
Transformers: Dark Of the Moon takes place shortly after the events of the second film. Sam Witwicky (Shia LaBeouf) has broken up with Mikaela Barnes (Megan Fox) and has a new girlfriend, Carly (Rosie Huntington-Whitely). The war between the Autobots and Decepticons has seemed to die down a bit, with Megatron's in hiding in Africa (the first scene he's in, where he was scaring a bunch of zebras and elephants away, was rather hilarious). And yes, the Twins ARE in this film - just a greatly reduced role this time around (like what's been stated before...Mr. Bay, can I have my $25,000 now that I found the Twins?), which actually makes quite an improvement from the last film, in which they were heavily featured.
First up, the casting is a noticeable improvement from previous films. As stated before, Megan Fox is dropped out completely (which is actually a great improvement, despite her keeping the guys interested in the previous films), and is replaced by model-turned-actress Rosie Huntington-Whitely in her acting debut. She actually does a good job with what she's given, and unlike Megan Fox, she manages to be hot AND be a good actress at the same time. Shia LaBeouf turns in what's possibly his best performance as Sam to date, also improving on mistakes from the predecessors. Patrick Dempsey is good as Carly's boss, and after watching this film, I'd be totally OK with this guy playing Doctor Strange.
The voice acting is even more solid. Peter Cullen does a magnificent job yet again as Autobot leader Optimus Prime, and IMO he just might be the best voice actor around (or at least one of them). Hugo Weaving does another good job as Megatron, while Leonard 'Spock' Nimoy is excellent as Sentinel Prime, the film's Autobot-turned-villain. Everyone else - from Ironhide and Bumblebee (although he rarely talks) to Shockwave (he doesn't talk much either) and Soundwave - all do great jobs in their respective roles (with the Twins as obvious exceptions, of course!).
Explosions are common throughout the franchise, but in
ROTF, the action seemed rather sloppy compared to what it could've been.
Dark Of The Moon corrects these errors and makes the action/destruction top-notch - from the devastation of Chicago to the final fight between the Primes. Half the film was shot in 3D, and while most people (me included) aren't big on the growing fad of having every other film shot in 3D, but the 3D actually helps the film look awesome, and has the best 3D since
Avatar (yes, I enjoyed that movie, despite its being overrated). That said, the film overall looks astonishing, and the overall darker tone helps too (as well as Bay better shooting the action sequences so we know what the heck is going on).
I only have a handful of complaints here. First, the script is relatively thin still (while not as thin as the first two), and doesn't allow as much character development as I would've liked (although, is character development absolutely needed for a film about giant robots? To some extent yes). Also, the presence of Shockwave is severely undermined. The marketing seemed to make Shockwave look like the main villain of the film, but instead has a rather small role before being killed off by Prime. The character himself was done excellently, but I would've loved to see more scenes with the 'bot.
So, in the end,
Transformers: Dark Of The Moon is a massive improvement over its predecessors (even better than the excellent first film), and is possibly Bay's best film to date. Whether or not most of the Bay-haters will like this is a little too early to tell (the audience rating on Rotten Tomatoes is currently 90%, while the first film was 89% 76% for
ROTF), but for those who enjoyed the other films, this movie's the
Transformers you have been waiting for.
I rate
Transformers: Dark Of The Moon 4.5 out of 5 stars.